05 Sunday Dec 2010
Posted in music
My new favorite song by Misty Edwards, with lyrics such as these:
I’ll set You as a seal upon my heart
As a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death
Jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this lovemisty edwards
17 Sunday Oct 2010
Tags
Arts, Dance, IPod, Lady GaGa, Neil Diamond, Performing Arts, Photograph, plinky, Poker Face, Weddings
Today, Plinky asks to share my favorite photo of myself. I chose this one with my husband.
This photo’s my favorite because Tim was reluctant to have it taken at first, but it became the best photo of us together. It’s not one of those staged shots where you sit thinking, “C’mon! Take the picture!” with a plastic smile posted to your face. This photo reveals the looks we have on our faces most of the time.
We took this photo at my nephew’s wedding–the same nephew who asked all the women to dance at our wedding over 18 years ago. My youngest daughter took his place by running out on the dance floor and boogie-ing with anyone who was out there. I ran out there after her, of course, and danced to every song from Neil Diamond to Lady GaGa.
Tim and my older daughter sat at their table, quiet, playing games and taking pictures with their iPods, just like a typical day in the Jones household.
10 Sunday Oct 2010
Tags
Arts, Brain Quest, Chris Welles Feder, Christian McKay, citizen kane, Filmmaking, In My Father's Shadow, Kenosha, Literature, orson welles, Richard Linklater, The War of the Worlds (radio), Zac Efron
25 years ago today, Orson Welles passed away. Here is my interview with his daughter Chris Welles Feder, author of Brain Quest and In My Father’s Shadow.
25 Saturday Sep 2010
Posted in family, music, non-fiction, parenting
Tags
Arts, Beatles, Dick Clark, George Harrison, Here Comes the Sun, John Lennon, Lyrics, meet the beatles, music, pleasant prairie, plinky, quiet riot, WI
Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison
My sister played this album a LOT when I was little. Our family lived in a cozy one floor home in Pleasant Prairie, WI. My sister had all the Beatles albums and when I learned to read, I sat enthralled by the huge album covers and notes.
I saw the boys transforming from half shadows on Meet the Beatles to the four squares on Let it Be. “Here Comes the Sun” reminds me of whatever we lose, it eventually comes back just like the sun never-failing to rise.
Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Mac & Katie Kissoon
Did Quiet Riot rip off the melody of this song for “Cum On Feel the Noize?” Listen closely, they sound alike. This song came out in 1971 which means I was 2 years old when it was on AM radio. I don’t remember much as a toddler but I do remember music.
I read that this song, about a baby bird who lost its mother, is a statement about boys lost in Vietnam. I’m not sure if that’s true but I do know that it’s a bubblegum pop song with a good beat you can dance to (to quote the many teenagers on Dick Clark‘s Rate-a-Record)
O-O-H Child by The Five Stair Steps
This song I listened to after my first daughter was born with a multitude of medical issues. The week after her birth, NICU kept finding something wrong with her as each day went by. First there were gastrointestinal issues, then a single kidney, and finally a hole in her heart.
Although the doctors swarmed around my husband and I and told us exactly what happened and what we needed to do, it still felt like we were drowning. Then I heard these lyrics: “Ooh child, things are gonna get easier. Ooh child, thing’s will get brighter.” And yes, eventually, we walked in the rays of the beautiful sun.
20 Monday Sep 2010
Tags
Arts, dennis miller, Fox News Channel, HBO, Megyn Kelly, Performing Arts, Riverside California, Talk radio, Wisconsin
Here’s a clip from Friday night at Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside. This was before the show as Dennis Miller has photos taken for the Riverside Arts Center Foundation.
You hear my goofy laugh while a man across the room talks about Wisconsin. Later I spoke with him to find out he’s from Delafield and he’s made fun of because of his accent. People from our parts say WisCAAAAHHHHHNsin. What accent?
Dennis walks toward me for a hug and I forget to turn the camera off – do you like the close up of the grid-like pattern of his shirt? Then we get a lovely view of my hand on the lens as he asks me, “Is life good?” And I reply, “Everything’s good.”
Definitely.
18 Saturday Sep 2010
I had the pleasure to see Dennis Miller (with opening act Julia Lillis) at the Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside tonight. He told a sweet story about his 69-year-old mother who got to have dinner with her son and Frank Sinatra 6 months before her death.
She told Sinatra, “I saw you in 1952 at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh.”
Sinatra replied, “1952, Stanley Theater? I remember you. You were on the left. You looked GOOD.”
Dennis said his mom “flitted” away.
Tonight, I got to meet Dennis backstage before the show. The way his mom felt when she met Sinatra? Yeah, that’s how I feel right now. I’m still flitting.
03 Friday Sep 2010
Posted in non-fiction, poetry
Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr
Knowing libraries are still relevant.
Volunteering makes me happy to not get paid.
Through a plethora of doctor appointments for my daughter, God shows me my purpose.
I’m never bored because my brain needs exercise .
My favorite time of the day: reading books to my girls at night.
After all these years, I finally appreciate my parents.
Knowing time and apologies heal all wounds.
I never let a little titanium in my body get the best of me.
I can find poetry in anything.
My siblings rock.
21 Friday May 2010
Posted in film
Tags
Arts, British, citizen kane, current biography, Literature, Mathematics, orson welles, Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, World Literature
Image via Wikipedia
Sometimes old school is the better way. Sure I love the Internet and how quickly I can find something, like who played Mr. Whipple in those Charmin commercials. But it’s not like wandering around a library coming across something happenstance.
I passed by a shelf in the reference section with Current Biography 1941 published by The H.W. Wilson Company. Since that was the year Citizen Kane premiered, I looked up Orson Welles and found yet another gem from his childhood:
“Young Welles had no education except this informal kind when he was finally sent to school at age 10. He had read all of Shakespeare, was proficient in belles lettres, amused himself by a critical analysis of Thus Spake Zarathustra; but he didn’t know how to add or subtract. When this lack was pointed out to him, ‘there will always be’ he said, ‘people around to add and subtract for me.’”
Hopefully my daughter, who is age 10, won’t read this entry. After all, I still need someone to add and subtract for me sometimes.
18 Thursday Mar 2010
Posted in art
Tags
Arts, Crayola, creativity, Depression, Education, God, gotham writers' workshop, jo-ann fabrics, Jo-Ann Stores, Learning, michaels, New York City
Image via Wikipedia
I saw a commercial recently for an anti-depressant drug supplement to take with the antidepressants we’re already taking. Depression is of course a real condition, but I wonder if it’s so rampant because we aren’t doing anything creative for ourselves?
Creative projects not only entertain but produce joy within an individual. We have God given talents but we hide them by filling up our days up with things to do for other people. Here are a few ways toclear the fog:
1. Make a list of what brought you joy as a child. My senior year in high school was the year I did exactly what I wanted to do. I was editor of the school newspaper, co-captain of the pom pon squad, sang in the choir, acted in plays and won awards for my art.
We need to go back to the place that thrilled us. Love the smell of clay in the art studio in college? Thrilled to see the shiny clean floor in the gym and hear the echoes of a basketball and the squeaks from your sneakers? Take a moment and drink it in.
2. Start small and cheaply. More into doodling than taking notes? Then grab a cheap notebook and doodle away. Visit your store’s Crayola section and find the new stuff they put out since we were kids. There’s more than just those boxes of 64 colors like periwinkle and thistle with the sharpener in the back.
Don’t know what to draw? Draw what’s on TV. Make your child joy list colorful. Don’t worry about showing it to anybody.
3. Visit the children’s library. When we’re short on knowledge, we have to become like children learning for the first time. Because that’s when learning was new and exciting.
4. Tour stores like Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabrics. Invest in some starter kits like scarf crocheting or needlepoint. There are also kits to build model cars and airplanes. And latch hooking is not just for girls. My husband says he loved to hook rugs as a kid. These are perfect for keeping hands busy while listening to podcasts or watching TV.
5. Found a niche? Take some classes. My daughter recently discovered she loves sewing which she learned at school. She started with a pattern and then branched out on her own. She’s already made stuffed animals and a small pillow that’s behind my neck now as I write this. It’s the best birthday present I ever received.
Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabrics also offer classes for kids and adults at all learning levels. If you’re a little skittish about shelling out for a class, look to the library again. Notice I say the library and not the internet. True, you can find a lot on the web but there’s nothing like the peace and silence the library offers us to focus on our tasks.
6. Pick up a schedule of recreational activities at your local community center. Our passion might lie in performing arts. Community centers might offer classes for beginners. Anyone who honed a talent had to start somewhere. And don’t compete. We don’t have to better than everyone else in the class.
Some people push away creativity because if they don’t get it right then why bother? Talent is a journey of progressions. We have gifts but we have to unwrap to use them.
7. Try out online courses. I still study writing through Gotham Writers Workshop in NYC. I may have graduated with a BA in English but it doesn’t mean I learned everything I need to know about writing.
Online courses, like college, don’t come cheap so make sure you have a budget for education. We don’t need to go into debt over our creative journeys. Debts only bring unnecessary burdens to succeed. When we don’t succeed we give up.
Creativity improves our mood and ability to focus. Without it, we get so lost in the details of life that we forget what makes us happy. Just like those days after the rain clears and the sun finally comes out, our attitude changes. We treat ourselves and other people with respect.
Have fun on your journey.
27 Saturday Feb 2010
Tags
Arts, creative process, Erle Stanley Gardner, Fahrenheit 451, Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper, Los Angeles, Perry Mason, ray bradbury, SARK, The Martian Chronicles, Writers Resources, YouTube
Cover via Amazon
“May my writer’s heart be free of competition, comparison or questing for money or recognition, and remember that we all write for everyone.” ~SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy OR Simple Acts of Random Kindness), Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper.
A year ago today I sat at the library, as I am now, and wrote a poem I later mailed to Ray Bradbury. He thought my name was Tom but that didn’t matter. I titled that poem after a line he wrote in his book Zen in the Art of Writing: When Their Souls Grew Warm. The passage he wrote was how everyone becomes poets when their pain is acute enough.
A carnival barker named Mr. Electrico told Bradbury as a boy that he needed to pursue the creative process. I’ve met many Mr. Electricos for whom I am forever grateful. Sometimes brief encounters shape who we are, not life-long relationships. If brief encounters make us write, more power to us. If they make us become the next Ray Bradbury or not so much the next Ray Bradbury, then that’s okay too.
SARK asks us to list the reasons why we don’t write. The last reason I listed, besides “I have to clean the bathrooms,” was I don’t know where it takes me. But I thought, so what? I’m not competing or comparing or questing. What a trap writers fall into when we think we need a place to go.
Right now I hear a child crying in the library as I stare out the windows with clouds whizzing by. Erle Stanley Gardner penned his Perry Mason mysteries here in Temecula. Something about all these hills surrounding this old west city inspired him. I’ll find that something when it’s my time.
